All of our clients sign up on a credit monitoring service if they're not on one already. The most user friendly one we've found is True Credit.

 What scares me is the amount of consumers that think these services (including freecreditreport.com) give them their actual FICO scores, when in actuality they are bogus (FACO/FAKO) scores. These scores can be 100 points higher or lower than your real FICO scores. That's why so many consumers go into shock when they apply for a mortgage and don't realize the scores aren't real.

 The purpose of monitoring is to:

1) Get alerts on your reports

2) Monitor your reports for changes

The reports themselves aren't 100 % accurate either, but they do give you a reasonable baseline. You can check daily if you sign up for the unlimited credit pulls, and since you are pulling your own credit you won't lower your score.

Usually, it's best to pull your REAL free report through the national clearing house for the 3 bureaus so you have the real reports first, but you will have to pay for the scores. Use True Credit to monitor during the dispute process, or if you are a fraud victim, then pay each of the 3 bureaus at the end of the process for your FICO (not Vantage) scores. 

Check out www.creditadvocateservices.com for more information, or to sign up for True Credit.